Here Is A Love Turned Ashes
by JadeLecter
Summary: "We are two halves of a whole, Tonks thinks with a ferocious desperation bordering on tears, we are one, he will return, he will return, oh God, he will return, and he will be exactly as she pictured him, hollows cutting silently into his cheeks, circles smudging under his eyes and his lips paling into almost nonexistence." Follows Remus and Tonks during HBP.


**_Author Note:_**** It's been a while, nearly a year, and my writing style's changed drastically, from macabre and black humor to...well, this. This is based on a poem by Edna St Vincent Millay, called "Here is a Wound that Never Will Heal", and I urge you to read it, if you like. Of course, Harry Potter does not belong to me, and I hope you enjoy reading my work, thank you very much. **

* * *

_Here is a wound that never will heal, I know_

_Being wrought not of a dearness and a death._

She knew he would return, knocking at the door tiredly, his eyes darkened and his hair the colour of lemons rolled in mud. She knew he'd slouch at the door, his mouth sullen and his hands weak, limp and almost broken, his clothes in rags. She sits on her couch and counts the seconds until they run in her head like the flow of ancient water under a well, and her breath ticks his name. We are two halves of a whole, she thinks with a ferocious desperation bordering on tears, we are one, he will return, he will return, oh God, he _will_ return.

There is a knock, and she knows it is Remus.

"Tonks." He says, and he is exactly as she pictured him, hollows cutting silently into his cheeks, circles smudging under his eyes and his lips paling into almost nonexistence. He looks nearly a corpse, with his dry-dirt brown hair, and his grey eyes, his hands shaking imperceptibly at the sleeves of his threadbare coat. He has worn that coat for so long, she thinks in an attempt at normal thoughts, he must be tired of it. She opens the door, and lets him in, and he almost falls inside, clutching onto her sofa.

His knuckles are white.

"Do you…want anything to eat?" She asks , scratching the back of her hand, and trying not to think of the last time they were together, when they had wept over Sirius, and made love in the darkest hallway. "I've got…cookies, and um. I've got cake."

"Please." He says with a tired smile (but all his smiles were tired), and his head leans back against the sofa as she runs to him with the cookies and cake balancing precariously on a plate. Fall, she thinks angrily, if the cookies fell, maybe they would finally be back to normal, a clumsy girl and a dizzyingly steady man. He picks up a cookie with his long, scarred fingers, with bruises on the knuckles, and looks at it, frowning, before he takes a bite.

Tonks laughs.

"What is it?" He asks, frowning, his mouth full of sweetness and heat, and he thinks of her mouth, which was also sweetness and feverish heat. "What's funny?"

"I'm sorry." She says, and stops herself before the laughter turns to tears. "It's just, you look...well, you look so depressed…and…cookies.."

"I hope you aren't in the habit of leaving people hanging." He says, taking another large bite.

No, that's you, she thinks vehemently.

"I'm sorry." Tonks grins. "I don't know…it's just. Cookies aren't supposed to be eaten with such a sad expression, you know. It's just so typically _you_, eating cookies while looking like a wet hen."

He stared at her for a minute, his eyebrows raised in that aggravatingly _Remus_ way, before his lips split, and his sudden smile shone through, and it tastes like sharp sugar on her tongue, Remus's smile, it was like the second's worth of peace before the gunfire started. The smile faded as he studied her, his finger trailing her pale cheek, running through her lank hair and the expression crept back onto his face, guilt, Remus looked terrible when guilt played on his face. His thumbs touched her cheek, and their faces were so close together that she could count the tiny scars and the lines around his eyes that were not laugh lines. We fit together, she thinks angrily, with a flaming emotion inside her she could not place. We fit so terribly well together, and he is so blind.

"Tonks." He says, he starts, but she raises a hand to his mouth, before he could apologize for the countless things that were never his fault. He loved apologizing, Remus did, he seemed to live for the moments he was admitting things, or apologizing, or understanding. He was too passive, Tonks thinks, but he would not be Remus if he was not.

"Will you stay when we wake up?" She asks, and she regretted asking the moment his eyes turned stormy grey, almost black, and he looks away, he will go. Of course he will go, she thinks with a shiver in her spine that felt like his finger, a long time ago.

"Tonks." He says, and removes her hand from his lips, and she watched the way the muscles shifted on his paleness, and how his eyes would change within seconds. He was beautiful in that way, she thinks, as Remus stretches himself out on the couch with his head on her lap, leaning into her stomach. She expects him to blurt out his endless apologies, or maybe tell her she was not eating properly (she was not), or maybe tell her the atrocities that had gone on in the werewolf camp. He simply stared up at her, with the intense, searching way he had of staring, almost eerie if you were not in love with him.

"Read to me." He says, and there is a frown line in between his eyes. "Read to me."

"What should I read?" She asks. They had read to each other before, in the darkened halls of Grimmauld Place, when Sirius was too drunk to be entertaining, and all they had for company was the longing gazes they threw at the other. They had read Muggle literature then, words upon words of magic and love, she remembers his voice rolling in her ears, it sounded like thunder that was too far away, but too close for comfort.

"Anything. Tell me the story of the boy."

She knew what he meant. Of course she did, she always knew what Remus meant, because it was as if they connected at the head, she could tell when his apologies were sincere (always), and how often his promises of return were true (never). She picked up the book from her table, and watched as his eyes closed, studied the tiny blue veins on his eyelids, she could draw their pattern out had you asked her, and she began to read.

"All children, except one, grow up."

_But of a love turned ashes and the breath  
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow_

The next time Remus turned up at her door, three months later in cold, wet January, he did not look dejected, or tired, and he did not have a weight pressing hard on his shoulders, making him hunch. Tonight, the despair in him was vivid and vibrant, almost violent, burning in his eyes, and flashing in his teeth. He did not wait to enter, but instead, made his own way inside, and he stared at her, with his burning bright eyes and the twist of his mouth today was not wry, or sarcastic, or sad, it was feral. His hair hung over his forehead, shadowing his eyes, and almost reaching his nose as he kept staring at her, as if drinking her in, tasting her without touching her.

She moved forward and folded into him, we fit together, she thinks again, but this time there is no anger in the thought, only a deep gratification that they were melding into each other again. Remus grips onto her and she knows he will leave bruises on her arm in the morning, but she lets him, and they stay holding each other until she reaches up, and touches his cold, pale face. She presses her warm lips to his, and remembers how she had waited so many months to do so again.

He responds furiously, his mouth working against her face, kissing so hard it even hurts him, but he _needs_ this tonight, and he nudges at her teeth with his tongue, and she opens her mouth for him as he presses her against the wall, breathing harshly. There are tears in her eyes as he carries her to the bedroom, but they are not tears of pain, or anger, or sorrow, but they are tears for Remus, and whatever that had happened to make the docile, passive man need her with such desperation. She lays down on the bed, and it is as if her legs open of their own accord, being in such close proximity to a wilder, stronger Remus has aroused her beyond a degree. He slides off her underwear, and throws it off to the side and he lowers his mouth down on her, tasting her.

His tongue works on her clitoris, his teeth scraping ever so slightly over her, and his tongue works lower, his teeth now grazing her sensitive bundle of nerves. He pushes a finger into her, and inserts it all the way in as he continues pleasuring her with his mouth, he is slowly fucking her with the finger, his teeth and tongue working on her clit, she sees flashes of colour and she can only think of Remus, Remus, Remus, as she arches her back, sweat dripping down her neck, and her breathing comes in a rattling gasp as he touches her to orgasm.

As soon as she is sated, Remus is on his knees, unbuckling his pants, and his eyes are still wild, and his hair tousled, his mouth wet from her, and as he removes his trousers, and tosses them, she can see he is almost painfully aroused, and as always, she feels a little shudder of joy that _she_, even in her un-morphed, plain state, could do this to him. He positions himself over her, and actually rips open her shit to fondle her breasts, and run his tongue over her nipples and Tonks wonders, in the lightest regions of her mind, the limits to delirious happiness. And he is inside her, he enters her smoothly, as if he belongs, because that was indeed where he belonged, and he moves over her as if he had been born to do this and there is an ancient, fetal heartbeat in the room as she moves under him, gazing at the wiry cords of muscle on his arms as he fills her, and thrusts against her. She comes again, and this time she sobs his name, not once, but over and over again like a desperate mantra. She feels him empty within her as his body constricts over her, tensing like a bow, and his sweat drips onto her forehead as he is whispering _tonks, oh god, tonks, tonks, oh god, oh god_, and she does not know who is being called, herself, or God.

He is silent after that, and lays on her chest, she figures he can hear both halves of her heart beating irregularly, and she listens to Remus's breathing, in and out, as if that was all that kept him alive (it was), and she listens to him fall asleep, she wonders what has happened in that terrible place with werewolves and monsters, to make this silent man with an ever-ready smile to crave her like this.

It is only after he leaves in the early light, without a single word, that she realizes she does not really want to know.

_That April should be shattered by a gust,  
That August should be leveled by a rain,_

When Remus arrives again, in February, when the rain was falling half-heartedly, she thinks with a vivid clarity, _I cannot say and will not say, that he is dead, he is just away_, she does not know why those words come to her just yet, maybe it is because Remus looks like a corpse, with his shadowed eyes and tight mouth, or maybe it is because she thinks of Sirius, in all his glory, who left with a bang and a Sirius-shaped hole in the universe. He has to be helped in, and when he collapses on her couch, his face stabs Tonks in her heart, the despair etched in him and the guilt rolling off his sloping shoulders.

Today there are no cookies, only a hunk of bread and a plate of thick soup, because Remus's face looked as if it would crumble, and then Tonks would not know how to put him back together. She thinks again of Sirius, and the old poem sings in her head again, the words threading through her brain until it merges with her normal stream of thought. He eats the bread and soup as if he has not eaten for weeks, and he probably had not, not with his eyes that looked as if he had seen dead people all his life, and his mouth that had forgotten what a smile was.

"Tell me." She says, but he shakes his head. His face is frighteningly white, and his eyes are darkened and wide, he looks ghostlike in his grief. He keeps shaking his head, until she places a hand on his arm, and wipes a tear from her eye, swallows the lump in her throat.

"Let's talk about Sirius." He says instead, and he drags up a smile to his face, heaves on it until it hooks on his face like marionette strings. His smile looked ghastly on his sad, sad face, and she wishes he would stop trying to please her, to please Dumbledore, to please the memory of Sirius.

"Remember he challenged us to an ice-eating contest?" Tonks said, a smile blooming on her face, colour appearing on her cheeks.

"He won, naturally." Remus remembered. "Sirius always had an unnatural appetite for things no other human would find appetizing."

"He tried to convince Kreacher to hang himself." Tonks felt the beginnings of giggles bubble inside her.

"And when he didn't make much progress," Remus's smile showed a glint of teeth. "He climbed up to the banister and helped make an elf-sized noose, and labeled it for Kreacher's use."

Tonks opened her mouth, ready to say something, anything about the various lewd exploits of Sirius, for there were hundreds, but nothing came out of her mouth and all that screamed through her head was _I cannot say and will not say that he is dead, he is just away_, it repeats itself again and again in her brain until Remus speaks.

"With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand." He continues the poem she had been thinking of. "He has wandered into an unknown land, and left us wondering how very fair, it's needs must be since he lingers there."

She closes her lids over her tears, and she knows she had not spoken aloud, but after all, this was Remus, who knew when she thought, what she thought, this was Remus who knew everything about her, from the scar on her thigh and the hitch of her breath, of course he would remember the poem she thought of.

"And you, oh you, who the wildest yearn…. For his old time step. And his glad return. Think of him fairing on as dear." He stops then, and there is no more smile on his face, there is no spot of colour and his face is death once again, and he touches her face with his cold hands, and she wishes she could drink his pain, and take it away from him.

"Oh Tonks," He starts and his eyes are no longer grey but they are the blackest night. "…children. Once these were children."

She latches onto his hand, and it is the only thing that ties her to Remus, stops her from drowning in his unspoken, unshed grief.

"These were once children, accidentally bitten." He continues through a set, white jaw and his hands shake slightly. "And now… they are like me."

"They are not like you, Remus." She says, and she presses her face into his chest since she could no longer bear to look at the torture in his face. "They can bite you a million times, and they can bring you up in their barbaric system, but Remus, you will never, ever become like them. You are Remus first, and werewolf second."

"Remus first…" He repeats dazedly. "Werewolf second."

They sit.

_I can endure, and that the lifted dust  
Of man should settle to the earth again;_

In March, it is his birthday, and she does not wait for him to steal into her doorway, bedraggled and broken, with eyes burning with grief. No, today she tells Kingsley that she will take a leave of absence, and King (dear, dependable Kingsley) understands, of course he understands. She wraps herself in a cloak, and tries to walk to the North, where the sleet and snow will never stop, but she gives up halfway though, and Apparates. She thinks of Remus, and how he always plastered a smile on his face, even as he tripped over his words, even as he told her Sirius was dead, he always dragged a heavy smile on his face. She saw through the flimsy smile, and so did Molly Weasley, and she loves the woman, for that, and for everything else. She arrives at the forest, the trees a mass of brown and green over her, it is hushed like a cathedral, and she wonders guiltily what it would be like to be married to Remus.

She hates herself for the thought.

She Disillusions herself when she sees him, sleeping on a tree trunk, away from the others, his hands tucked in his lap, he looked so prim and proper, even inside a forest, that a laugh threatened to snatch out of her, she swallows it down. She creeps toward him, and slips her hand into his, he awakes, but he does not look surprised at all, he looks used to this, he looks resigned, and her heart almost breaks, because it was obvious that he felt her hands in his every morning, that when she actually was there, it was only the vestiges of a dream to him. She leans down, and whispers.

"Happy birthday, love."

There is no dawning surprise, no glee on his face, but he stands up now, still holding her hand, and starts running through the forest, away from the werewolves, deep into the trees, and she runs with him, her Disillusionment lifting, and she feels laughter rising in her chest, laughter streaming out of her mouth and trailing behind them. To her surprise, he laughs too, his eyes shining and his hand clutching hers almost too hard, and they laugh and laugh as they run through the forest, she feels clear and bright and vivid, Tonks feels as if she could live forever.

They stop.

They are breathless, smiles still etched on their faces and they have still not let go of the other's hand, she feels like a teenager getting caught in a relationship that was illegal, maybe with a teacher, and it fits, because he is a professor, he was. He takes her into his arms and there is nothing weighing on him today, his smile is free and open, almost delirious and he strokes her hair, again and again, he holds her and kisses her as if he has waited his life to do so. Remus wishes he could hold her like this every single day, maybe every hour, and he knows he would never bore of her laughter, and he thinks this repeatedly, even as he opens the presents she brought for him, from Molly, from Kingsley, and from herself.

He feels overly happy, and he hopes that nobody is going to die.

_But that a dream can die, will be a thrust  
Between my ribs forever of hot pain._

There is a sort of ball lodged within her chest, made of stone, and she knows it is not her heart, but a shoddy sort of replacement made of ire and hurt. She thinks of Albus Dumbledore, his twinkles and smiles, and she hates herself for hating him, for letting Remus go out into the feral world. But now, Dumbledore is dead, and she sits in the hospital wing by herself, tears streaking her cheeks, and Molly's warm arm on her hand. Remus had stormed out thirty four minutes ago (she counted), and she waited, she would give him time, because she did not want to see him more broken than he already was, she had no shoulder to offer because she herself was crumbling.

It has been forty minutes, and she stands up, walks out with a determination that only the foolish, or those in love possess.

"Remus." She says, and he turns to look at her, his eyes dark, and she ponders on why they were labeled as grey, when in reality, they were stormy and black when he was upset, or depressed, which was most of the time. He tries to force back the smile on his face but it deflates sadly, every time he pushes up his cheeks, they slump back down, but he would not admit defeat, he kept trying. It was so typically _Remus_, the way he tried to smile even when the world was crumbling and caving, he would still try, but today, every smile was collapsing in on itself.

It was his futile attempts that caused her to dissolve into the tears that were never easy for her, and she folds into him, like they did so many times, and her body aligns with his, they fit together, she thinks again. He holds her, and she can feel the guilt coursing in his veins, but she does not want to think about Remus, and the decisions he will have to make, instead, she thinks about his arms and how strong they were in a man who ate so little. She thinks, with a half-hearted giggle, how odd it was they always managed to blindly find each other in the midst of grief. She looks up at his face, and she sees that it was not as white and clenched as it had been, and she tries to speak.

"Just one day, Remus." She says, and he looked sharp in the moonlight, angles and lines and cheekbones. "And then tomorrow, we'll try another day."

"No." He says, and unclenches his jaw. She is heartbroken at the thought of how seldom she had seen him recently when he was relaxed, he was always some sort of torn. "We have been trying this one day business for far too long, Tonks. I am…not cut out for you. I am…You are this fever dream to me."

She knows he will hate himself later for this dialogue.

"You are a fever dream, and I…I expect to wake up, and find you torn, bitten, sad. But you are sad now." He grits his teeth and looks away. "You are sad now, and it is my fault. I-. I do not want to try one day, Dora. Let us try forever."

Tonks feels like she is floating, or dying.

"Dora." His voice is low, and he presses his forehead against hers. "Are you sad?"

"Are you?" she whispers back, she knows it is right to be sad, Albus Dumbledore was dead, but she knows the grief would burn them alive tomorrow, and there was no sadness in her tonight.

"No." He says, and he holds her against him.

"No." she echoes.

* * *

_**Author Note:**_******Well, that's it, haha. I do hope you enjoyed it, and if I get good feedback, I really would like to start writing Remus/Tonks or Remus/Sirius stories again, instead of sticking mainly to Hannibal. I'm not sure with this new, descriptive style, whether it works for Harry Portter stuff as well.**

**Please do leave a review and a comment, they will be most appreciated and read thoroughly.**


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